Building on the Cloud

Salesforce.com has helped build a group of certified Force.com developers on oDesk, making our marketplace one of the best resources for buyers looking to use Salesforce.com CRM solutions on the Force.com platform. And we’re hearing from the providers offering Force.com skills that being part of this latest certified group on oDesk is paying off as “cloud computing” reaches new heights.

Rakesh Aggarwal is a salesforce.com-certified developer in India who says demand for Force.com implementations has brought him a steady stream of customers since a buyer brought him onto oDesk last summer.

“I was already developing applications on salesforce.com when one of my clients insisted on working through oDesk,” he says. “After my first successful job through oDesk—now I insist that my clients work through oDesk!”

In its first three weeks, the salesforce.com/Force.com group on oDesk has grown to about 60 programmers. Jobs were already on the rise—a year ago, about 10 jobs involving Salesforce CRM were being posted each month on oDesk. Today it’s between 40 and 50. Rakesh says the technology has a lot of appeal. “I knew this was the future of technology because it’s the fastest, most trusted and most complete platform for building and delivering applications in the cloud.”

The cloud idea is simple—offering the full software platform as a service, so that the applications and data reside on the Internet (conceptualized as a cloud of servers), where a business can access them. This keeps in-house IT costs down and allows more flexibility and faster rollout of new services. Rakesh says a wide range of companies are taking advantage of the concept. “I’ve worked with individual developers who wanted to push their applications to Appexchange, and also with companies with more than 200 licenses, where they wanted to extend their business processes within salesforce.com.”

Rakesh has been working with salesforce.com technology for three years, since before the Force.com offering launched. He says that Force.com and oDesk have been a powerful combination for his business. oDesk lets him focus on his work as a developer, rather than on the hassles of being a one-man small business.

“I can manage my work much easier now,” he says. Which is good, because there’s more of it. “I had to go about searching for work earlier, but after couple of jobs here, I have been constantly getting work through oDesk.”

He says he’s even busier since joining the new salesforce.com certified users group. “It’s a great initiative, and it’s great to be part of this group,” he says. “After joining this group, the number of leads for salesforce.com projects has increased for me.”

While his profile offers other skills besides his salesforce.com expertise, Rakesh sees the Force.com platform as the critical focus, for himself and the buyers he’s serving.

“Cloud computing is a simple idea,” he says, “but it can have a huge impact on your business.”

Click here to see salesforce.com certified providers.
Click here to see all of oDesk’s sponsored groups.

Tech Writer

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Please give me direction for make a member of provider to oDesk for submitte my job.

Md Jashim Sharwar

I want to establish me as a provider of oDesk.
I pass the readyness test. How it possible?

http://studioproducts.com Roberts Howard

You too? It leads me to wonder about Odesk’s serivices in general.

Lizzette

I still don

http://studioproducts.com Roberts Howard

I found this article filled with jargon that made it incomprehensible to me, the non-computer manager. CRM? Clouds? Those and other terms seemed to be aimed at people withing a narrow industry.

I am in marketing…good old-fashioned grab ‘em by the eyes until they say yes marketing. What can you do for me and my companies? I saw some lead cards…so what’s the difference between those and a Rolodex?

Tell me what is special about this stuff. If it’s just a time-saver, that’s not worth the time to switch operations. Can this get us more customers? If so, how does it work?

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